…And carrying a pistol in one hand.
The moment of hesitation proved fatal. Arul heard the Strumscharfuehrer grunt in pain as the old man opened fire, bending over as the first bullet slammed into his chest and the second smashed his goggles, slamming right through them and into his brain. The Strumscharfuehrer was dead before he hit the ground. Arul shouted in rage, pointing his rifle at the old man and pulling the trigger. He could have sworn he saw a smile on the man’s face before three bullets struck his body, sending him falling to the ground. What did he have to smile about?
He turned back to the girl and – too late – found out.
Horst had been knocked ass over teakettle by the blast – a grenade, he thought – but he’d managed to keep hold of his pistol as the commandos ran up behind him. They’d been looking at Gudrun – she’d been too dazed by the impact to play dead – and he’d been bracing himself to intervene when Frank Reinecke, of all people, had appeared and opened fire, killing one of the SS commandos. Horst sat upright, despite the aches and pains, and took aim at the other commando. The man had no time to react before Horst fired, putting a bullet through his mask and into his brain.
He staggered to his hands and knees and crawled over to Gudrun. She was almost certainly in shock – there was a nasty bruise on the side of her head – and staring at the remains of her grandfather, mumbling to herself. Horst wasn’t sure if she liked him or not, but he’d given his life to save hers. That, at least, deserved recognition.
“It’s all right,” he said, wrapping an arm around her. The sound of shooting was slowly dying away, although he knew that jumpy soldiers would be firing at shadows for the next few hours. “They can’t hurt you any longer.”
But, in all honesty, he wasn’t sure if that were true.
Chapter Forty
Berlin, Germany
25 August 1985
“There’s no hope for recovery,” Volker Schulze said. There was a bitter tone in his voice as he looked down at Konrad’s body. “The life support can be turned off.”
Gudrun felt sick as she took one last look at her former boyfriend. The medical report had been clear, all too clear. Konrad had been dead, to all intents and purposes, from the moment he’d been wounded. His comrades had done a fantastic job keeping his body alive, but the brain was dead and the soul was gone. She’d started the whole affair for Konrad, yet he would never live to see the new world.
“Goodbye,” she said, very quietly.
“He loved you, I believe,” Volker Schulze said. “But he would also have wanted you to live your life, not waste it in mourning.”
“Too many people are dead,” Gudrun said. Hundreds dead in the march, dozens killed when the SS had attacked the Reichstag. It galled her that she knew only a handful of their names, although she’d promised herself that they would be immortalised afterwards. “But I will try to live for his sake.”
She sighed as she turned and walked towards the door, not wanting to watch as the doctors finally cut off life support. Konrad was dead – and so was Grandpa Frank. The old man she’d spent half of her life loathing had given his life to save hers, despite his own fear of death. She had no idea what was awaiting him in the afterlife – and she knew far too much about his crimes – but she hoped he would not be judged too harshly. He had tried to make up for his crimes, after all.
Horst met her outside, looking uncertain. “Are you all right?”
Gudrun gave him a tight hug, fighting down the urge to cry. “They’re taking him off life support now,” she said, bitterly. “He’ll be buried tomorrow with the others.”
“It’s not over,” Horst said. “You and I might still end up dead too.”
“I know,” Gudrun said. “The SS isn’t going to let us win without a fight.”
She contemplated it as they walked through the doors and out into the car park, where her official car was waiting. The provisional government had control over most of Germany Prime – although Wewelsburg Castle was still holding out – but the SS, the rump government, was in firm control of Germany East. And they controlled tanks, aircraft, missile launchers and thousands of trained soldiers. There would be war. Germany East couldn’t survive without the rest of the Reich.
At least we have control of most of the nukes, she thought. And it will take them some time to rewire the warheads they do have under their control. We did keep them from getting the launch codes.
It wasn’t a reassuring thought. Gudrun knew little about nuclear weapons, but one of the government officials who’d briefed her had admitted that a skilled engineer would probably be able to bypass the security codes and prepare the nuke for detonation. The SS hadn’t been trusted with sole control of nuclear warheads since they’d been used to crush a rebellion in 1950, yet they had hundreds of engineers in Germany East. Triggering the tactical nukes probably wouldn’t be that hard.
But they’d have to be mad to use them, she thought. We have hundreds of nukes too.
Horst opened the door for her, waited until she was seated and then climbed into the driver’s seat. “Where do you want to go, Frau Gudrun?”
Gudrun almost suggested they find a quiet place to spend some time together, but she knew it wasn’t a possibility. There was just too much for her to do at the Reichstag. Besides, they would be noticed. There were far fewer cars on the streets now, as the provisional government fought to conserve fuel as much as possible. If the SS managed to convince the Turks to cut the oil pipelines that ran from Germany Arabia to Germany Prime, they might have fuel shortages to add to their other woes. Hell, even food would be in short supply if the SS started cutting shipments from Germany East.
“Back to the Reichstag,” she said, finally. They’d have time to relax together once the day came to an end. “I have work to do.”
Berlin seemed stunned, she saw, as they drove through the streets. The schools were closed – a number of BDM matrons had vanished, according to the reports – and most workplaces had followed suit. It had only been two days since the Fuhrer had formally announced the formation of a provisional government, complete with a whole string of freedoms, and no one seemed quite sure how to handle them. The population had spent their whole lives guarding their mouths, after all; she suspected that some of them feared the SS was still watching them from the shadows. And they might well be right. There were hundreds of SS personnel still unaccounted for in Berlin alone.
And so we have to make the new government work before it’s too late, she thought, as the car rolled into Victory Square. And if we fail, the SS will tear the Reich apart.
“The real question,” Ambassador Turtledove said, “is just what we do.”
“Nothing,” Andrew advised. He’d spent the last four days struggling to keep abreast of the changes running through the Reich. “Both sides in this brewing civil war have nukes. The loser might just decide to pop their missiles at the United States and call it a draw.”
“Assuming the ABM network doesn’t protect us,” General William Knox pointed out. “This is an opportunity to actually put an end to the Reich, once and for all.”